Adrian Michaels is Group Foreign Editor at the Telegraph Media Group. You can write to adrian.michaels@telegraph.co.uk and follow @adrianmichaels on Twitter.

Egypt's educated revolutionaries can all speak English

In the media coverage of recent events in the Middle East, I'm sure you have been struck by the ease with which the world's broadcasters have found youthful Egyptians to speak fluent and rapid English at the drop of a hat. Everywhere these lucky journalists turn, an engaging debater is making cogent argument in a foreign tongue into their outstretched microphones.

I really do wonder if it would be as simple to find such linguistic accomplishment on the streets of Rome or Paris. The standard of spoken English is in a bad enough state in England itself. I don't want to sound too much like an old reactionary, but I heard a rail station announcer only yesterday render his announcement largely unintelligible by inserting three glottal stops into the word "Waterloo" so that there was no discernible consonant after the initial W.

The English spoken in Egypt and Tunisia just underlines that it is the educated, youthful middle classes that have been leading the revolutions so far. Many of them have travelled to other countries and seen the opportunities that exist elsewhere. They are bitterly disenchanted with the employment and economic prospects at home. The irony is that the presidents of Tunisia and Egypt, being relatively benign autocrats, allowed education and relative equality to flourish. Their crueller despot brethren elsewhere have yet to be booted from office.